The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets
Of All Time
As listed by i-mockery.com
#50: Space Invaders
Nobody can deny the desire to pop a quarter into this ol' machine should they be lucky enough to spot it. The inviting drawings on this cabinet helped catch people's attention and made Space Invaders hugely successful. What's nice is how some of the artwork on the faceplate actually bleeds into the screen area. At first glance you might think that it would be distracting but it's not. It just helps draw you into the game that much more. And let's be honest, it's a very simple game and it's not like the artwork would be covering up some vital detail anyway. Another noteworthy thing is that there is no joystick on this cabinet, the left & right movement controls are all buttons, just like the fire button.
#49: Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles tried a couple different things with this colorfully decorated cabinet. Most arcade games used joysticks for moving the player around, especially when movement is limited to the four cardinal directions, along with their four half-and-half cousins. Not Crystal Castles, though; the designers decided that the player should have to use a trackball to navigate the grid-like mazes in the game. It's an ingenious way to make your game seem unique, while simultaneously drawing extra cash out of the customer by causing a lot of cheap game overs. The game also came in a cocktail-style cabinet, in case you could convince someone else to join you in getting screwed out of your quarters. Hey, at least the trackball was backlit. That's cool, right?
#48: Crossbow
They used to have this game at an old roller rink in town. The premise for the game is that you have to protect your friends from harm by picking off bad guys and flying debris with your trusty crossbow. To fully immerse you in the game, you had to actually use a small mockup of a crossbow. In a way, it was sort of like a primitive version of Silent Scope, except that there was no scope, just a couple notches in the thing that you lined up. The point is, the game allowed children to finally experience the elegant killing power of a crossbow (the H-bomb of the Middle Ages). Incidentally, there was a sharp increase in the number of crossbow-related injuries around the time this game came out, and the politicians of the day sought to pin the blame on video games. Frankly, I don't see the connection.
#47: A.P.B.
Being a cop requires certain specialized equipment. To that end, the designers of A.P.B. created a machine with a few special features to more accurately simulate the hectic life of a police officer. The game is almost all driving, so it's only natural that there be pedals and a steering wheel on the cabinet. However, the game also included one of the most memorable features of a cop car: the lights. Whenever you hit the "siren" button in the game, a set of red and blue lights at the top of the cabinet would begin flashing, giving you the chance to annoy and distract people from all the way on the other side of the arcade. Thankfully, though, the actual siren itself was in-game only. Also worth noting is that a platform seat could be attached to the cabinet, in case you felt your customers might not want to stand on one foot, with the other on the gas and/or brake, for an extended period of time
#46: Tapper
When making a simulator-type game, it is important that you nail down as many details of the experience as possible to completely immerse the player. One of the most basic steps you can take is to include a controller that looks and feels just like the real thing. That said, it's just common sense that Tapper, a bartender simulator, would have an actual pour spout to let you get the full feel of life as a bartender. Of course, you're not much of a bartender, as you only serve beer at your bar, and you only serve one kind of beer: Budweiser. Still, you got to experience bartender-dom in all of its glory. The cabinet even came with drink holders and a brass railing so that you could play as a bartender while still enjoying the amenities afforded to those on the opposite side of the bar.
The bad news: no tips.
It should also be noted that there actually was an alternate version of this game created for more family-oriented places (ie: Chuck-E-Cheese) and was renamed "Root Beer Tapper". Unfortunately the nice add-ons such as the brass railing and drink holders were not included with this version of the game.
#45: Fonz
There are many motorcycle racing arcade games out there, but none of them were based on the most memorable character from "Happy Days", Fonz! In addition to having handlebar controls that functioned exactly like a real motorcycle, you had the Fonz giving you a big thumbs up on the side of the machine. His visage alone makes this 1976 Sega classic worthy of our list. Eeeeyyyyy!
#44: Two Tigers
Here's another fun one from days past. The idea was that you'd sink your opponent's battleship not by randomly guessing a letter and a number, but by blasting through it with bombs and flaming plane wreckage. It even had steering controls just like an old-fashioned fighter plane, or so I assume. Of course, it was a little hard to control the plane with these controls since the action took place from a side view, and not a cockpit view like you'd expect from games with controls like this, but still, it added a certain degree of realism to the experience. Not quite enough realism to offset the fact that you had an unlimited number of planes and that each one only flew about 10 miles an hour, but it was still fun.
#43: Bazooka
The game name? Bazooka. Your controller? A bazooka. Need I say more?
#42: Super Off-Road
I've said it before on this list, and I'm bound to say it again: I generally don't care for racing games. The sitting down is nice, but rarely do arcade racing games come with comfy chairs. Ivan "Ironman" Stewart saw this, and decided to save a little money on his racing game by simply doing away with uncomfortable plastic chairs and creating an entirely upright racing game. To some, this must seem like a bad move. Quite the contrary: indeed you are bound to get tired after standing for a while with one foot on the ground and the other tapping a squeaky metal pedal. That's where the "Ironman" part of the game comes into play. It was a race within the game, and a test of endurance without. One player toughs it out while his buddies crack from the strain and start mashing their "nitro" buttons, which merely leads to them slamming into the wall and griping about off-roading being a redneck sport. No no, thank you, Mr. Stewart.
#41: Battlezone
Here's an old school classic for you. The wire frame tanks were cool, as were the nifty stickers for fake buttons carefully placed next to the real buttons that controlled your own tank (which was actually designed in 128-bit color with amazing texture detail and bump mapping, all of which went to waste when it was revealed that the game was entirely in the first person perspective). However, some of the cabinets were designed to further sell the whole "tank of the future" motif. Instead of having an ordinary, blasé screen, they had a sort of periscope view. Normally, completely shutting out all outside light and subjecting your eyes to nothing but bright wire frames for long periods of time could be detrimental to your eyesight, but thankfully, the developers had the foresight to include open areas to the sides of the scope frame to let in some sunlight, and to let a few people look in on you to see if you were doing well or sucking out loud. If Nintendo had remembered this little feature when they were designing their damned Virtual Boy, I might still be able to see the color red.
#40: Exterminator
Having a game where you use a digitized hand to smash digitized bugs in a digitized house wasn't good enough for the designers of Exterminator. They wanted the entire cabinet to be shaped like one of the houses in the game, right down to the roof and chimney. It gave the game a very unique feeling, which was good because the cabinet couldn't be made to play any other games besides Exterminator (something that's commonly done in arcades). It was a very bold move. It wasn't a very popular move, especially since the cabinets themselves were pretty unreliable, but it was a bold move nonetheless.
#39: Title Fight
You kids today. In my day, we didn't have a "Nintendo Wii" with motion-sensitive control sticks for our boxing games. Oh no, we had our own kind of control "sticks" for our boxing games. Take Title Fight, for example. You had two joysticks, and each one was like a set of plastic brass knuckles that you would slam forward and backward in order to lay your opponent out on the canvas. There probably were sound effects in this game, but I could never make them out over the loud banging of the joysticks as I mimicked the motions (and enthusiasm) of real professional boxers. In a totally unrelated note, the local arcade was always sending their Title Fight machine away for repairs because somehow, the joysticks kept getting broken. Probably some punk kids spilling their sodas all over the damn console. I hate kids.
#38: Smash TV
Who doesn't remember Smash TV? Altered Beast had "Wise fwom your gwabe", and Smash TV had "Big money, big prizes, I love it!" Ok, I'll admit it doesn't have quite the same punch, but it was fitting, considering how many toasters and VCRs you could walk away with. The thing that really took me by surprise back when I first saw this thing was that instead of having a joystick and a couple buttons for shooting, it had an unbelievable two joysticks: one for moving, and one for shooting in one of eight directions. It was positively revolutionary. So much so that I didn't even mind the fact that I was getting totally reamed in that game, and shelling out more than my fair share of quarters trying to find the "Pleasure Domes", if you know what I mean.
#37: Laser Ghost
Lasers and ghosts were at long last brought together in this late 80's shooter. The cabinet featured plastic guns affixed to the console just like all the other shooters from that era. However, whereas other shooters could only fit two guns for two players onto the machine, Laser Ghost managed to squeeze a third gun in between the other two. This meant your other friend didn't have to wait for either you or your friend to die before jumping in. Unfortunately, the middle gun was much higher than the other two. Some versions of the cabinet included seats for players 1 and 3, and others included a seat for just player 2, but either way, someone was going to be left standing when you played the game. It was just a matter of figuring out which friend you liked least.
#36: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT)
If you were at an arcade with both this game and The Simpsons, you had a tough choice ahead of you, but either way you were in for a lot of fun. Now, the obvious thing to do would be to go with the TMNT game that four people could play, but they still made a number of cabinets designed for only two players. That's how you knew if you were in a cheap-ass arcade or not. Anyway, the cabinet itself was decked out with images of the turtles, along with a couple actors portraying April and Shredder. Were the artists unable to draw convincing human characters or did they think these photo actors would make the appearance of the game all the more impressive? Perhaps it was simply too hard to find the real ninja turtles for a photo shoot? Only Master Splinter knows such ancient secrets. I'm sure that this machine was the start of a highly lucrative modeling career for the girl who posed as April too. Either way, it was a big, bright arcade machine that drew in gamers like pizza draws in turtles. Ninja turtles.
#35: S.T.U.N. Runner
I was never one for racing games, unless you were talking about those racing games where they added some gimmicks to make it interesting, like driving an armed hovercraft of some sort. That's where S.T.U.N. Runner came in. Oh sure, you'd start out as just a wimpy hover Ferrari, but once you got past the first level, they'd strap some wings, a nosecone, and a gun turret to your ship, and you were ready to start tearing ass around the long, tubular highways, gunning down any hapless motorists that were going too slow for your liking. Time just seemed to fly by on this machine, and let me tell you, that boxy plastic bench you had to sit on while playing the game was coooomfy! Plus the machine itself looked like it could pass for a futuristic vehicle of some sort. When you're a little kid trying to play this game, though, you were often better off just standing on the damn thing so you could get a good angle on the screen, but of course, some concerned parent would always be waiting somewhere nearby to scold you for standing on that narrow plastic seat, but hey, if they'd have put an accelerator pedal down there instead of just making the acceleration automatic, we wouldn't have had that problem in the first place.
#34: Top Skater
Joysticks can be useful for the majority of arcade games. Still, however useful they may be, you can't expect players to walk away with your game in mind if there isn't something special about it. Sure, you could try to make a memorable gaming experience with entertaining gameplay, but that will only draw in so much money. The real cash comes from drawing in casual players who are just trying your machine on a whim. Top Skater went for this angle with their tilting skateboard controller, the first of its kind. The player would stand on the board and tilt it left or right, forward or back, depending on what trick was to be performed. A nifty innovation by itself, but thankfully, the developers also had the foresight to install railings on the side so that you wouldn't simply fall off and twist your ankle the moment you attempt your first trick. You could still slip right off and smack your head on the railing on your way down, but it was still an improvement. Just make sure you aren't wearing flip-flops when you hop on the thing unless you enjoy having arcade crows laugh at your mishaps.
#33: Starship 1
A few decades ago, there wasn't much to most arcade games. Graphics and CPUs had only advanced so far, so developers would often try to spruce up the cabinet to make up for this. In the Starship 1 cabinet, in order to simulate the feel of space, the makers of the cabinet put in an angled mirror that reflected the image from the monitor onto a drawing of space. It's a pretty nifty way to make up for hardware limitations, and it must have been quite impressive back in the 70s. And let's not overlook the unusual futuristic plastic molding that was inserted into the front of the cabinet merely for aesthetics. Also, there were no in-game crosshairs (which are quite handy to have when running a combat flight simulator), but this was fixed by applying a couple strips of tape in a cross. Ah, the wonders of technology.
#32: Hang-On
With racing games, the basic rule of thumb is to put a steering wheel on the cabinet so the player will be drawn into the game. With motorcycle games, you use some fake handlebars, plus you can save extra costs by putting the accelerator on the handle. Of course, if you're standing up while all this is going on, the illusion is ruined, so Sega decided to turn out a version of the game with a plastic motorcycle that you had to lean left and right on to turn. It was quite unique, and it helped distract from the unremarkable graphics such as the solid blue sky and the generally barren areas on the ground.
#31: Thunder Blade
Arcade versions of flight simulators are fairly easy to come by. Most of the time, the manufacturer will just slap a special joystick with a trigger on the underside and a little button on the top, usually for machine guns and missiles respectively, on a regular upright cabinet and be done with it. If they were feeling generous, they might also throw in a lever for adjusting your throttle, or altitude, or whatever other bit of avionics they feel is necessary to get your precious quarters. Normally, that would probably be the case for 4 out of 5 Thunder Blade players. However, if you were fortunate enough to visit a ritzier arcade than those other chumps, you might happen upon a version of the game that used a cockpit-like setup that would tilt left and right according to how you moved the joystick. Fortunately, the developers had the foresight to include some metal cups for your feet so the machine wouldn't chuck you over the side after a sharp turn. However, that's not to say it didn't happen, especially if you made a right turn (no throttle joystick to catch your hip before your fall).
#30: Skydiver
For those who were too fearful of trying their luck at real skydiving, Atari had things covered with their 1978 release of Skydiver. This game created challenges for your sky diving character based on timing jumps and variable wind factors in order to eventually land on the target. What was truly unique about this cabinet is that the controllers were actual ripcord rings instead of typical joysticks! And if you didn't pull the ripcord in time? Well, your diver got splattered on the pavement and then an ambulance would come onto the screen to take the diver away. I'm sorry though, if you actually have a skydiving accident, you don't need an ambulance... you need a hearse.
#29: Paperboy
Paperboy instantly caught my attention in the arcade, not because of the insane things happening in the neighborhood where the main character has his paper route (fights, breakdancing, the grim reaper showing up, etc.); it was the handlebar controller that piqued my curiosity. In a weird way, it really did feel like you were riding a bike for the first time when you played the game. Problem is, all too often people would steal the rubber grips that were on the handlebars, so you'd be stuck playing the game by gripping two metal bars. You're clearly going places in life if you think stealing two plastic grips off an arcade machine is worth the effort. You know, roughly 30 years from now, there will be an elderly man living in a trailer somewhere, telling his grandkids about the wild days of his youth and when they ask him what it was like, he'll just wink and point to a couple of plastic grips he stole from the Paperboy arcade machine which he now keeps on the mantle like trophies. Paperboy is another game that I think could be remade for arcades today; the new version would have the player both steer and peddle the bike instead of just steering it like in the old version. It might not be easy to play, but at least it'd be good exercise.
#28: Tron
In any discussion of cool arcade cabinets, it is pretty much required that you mention the cabinet for Tron. Disney wanted this game to be as successful as the movie, if not moreso, and they spared no expense to make the cabinet eye-catching: The sides of the cabinet featured scenes from the movie, the control panel and a bunch of the surfaces around the screen were painted with white lines like those you'd find on a circuit board. Here's the real kicker: The cabinet also had a pair of blacklights, and when they were on, the circuit lines, and even the joystick, would appear to glow. It was a very cool effect, especially in a perpetually dark arcade. And as if all that weren't enough, even the profile of the cabinet was a unique shape compared to the rest of the games you'd find in an arcade. In fact, the only downside to the cabinet was that the screen was placed at an angle so that you looked down on it as you played. This meant that if you were short, you were basically screwed. On the other hand, isn't that just a fact of life?
#27: Sea Wolf II
Yet another old school game makes it onto our lists. As is the case with a number of other games we've mentioned, this one's an arcade-style simulator. You look through the periscope to spot ships in the distance, and fire your torpedoes with a thumb button on the joystick. For added effect, when you hit a ship, and when you've fired all your torpedoes, lights alerting you to these things will light up inside the scope itself. Better yet, the cabinet has two submarine periscopes side-by-side so that two players can go head to head to see which one of them can sink the most ships in the least amount of time. Word to the wise: during the second round, make sure you torpedo the RMS Lusitania in order to enter the WWI Lightning Round!
#26: TX-1
Let's face it: it's hard to improve upon the racing game. Apart from improved physics and graphics, there really isn't much room for innovation. TX-1 threw that notion out the window. In addition to cutting-edge graphics (green grass, blue sky, gray road) and state-of-the-art physics (car is held to the earth by gravity), Atari went a step further and put three screens into the cabinet. On straightaways, it's not a particularly useful feature, unless you want to make sure that the ground is the right color. However, when you come to a turn in the road, you'll notice that you're actually able to see more than ten feet of the road ahead of you. It was the most amazing thing to come to racing games since the steering wheel. Eventually, developers would learn that if the perspective shifted with the car, you didn't need to have extra monitors, but until that time, it was all about TX-1 and its fancy new setup.
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